Dr. Van Nieuwerberg chuckled. “Anyone’s obtained to pay the payments,” he mentioned.
He famous the irony of his personal circumstances, prophesying a metropolis laid waste by distant work. “And right here I’m in my workplace 5 days per week,” he mentioned.
Already the numbers assist a doom cycle. On a median weekday, practically half of New York Metropolis’s staff steer clear of the workplace; on Mondays and Fridays, the share is even larger. Subway and bus ridership are down by one-third from prepandemic ranges. Main crimes rose greater than 20 p.c final yr, and greater than 300,000 folks left the town within the first yr of the pandemic, taking a complete earnings of greater than $21 billion. If workplace values lower in proportion with utilization, metropolis income from property taxes will drop by $5 billion a yr, Dr. Van Nieuwerburgh mentioned.
“So this can be a practice wreck in gradual movement,” he mentioned. “The second shoe has but to drop.”
However he was fast to say that the downward cycle needn’t result in Armageddon on the Hudson.
“What occurs to New York Metropolis from right here on out will depend on the actions we take and the coverage selections which might be made,” he mentioned. “It’s not inevitable. There’s varied levels to how dangerous this may get. There’s a situation in my thoughts the place it’s not as dangerous as feared, if we make all the suitable coverage selections. There’s a lot of different eventualities the place we don’t.”
His introduction to New York gives some perception into this second, and the way the town may mood it, he mentioned. After finishing his doctorate at Stanford, he moved to New York in 2003, when Decrease Manhattan was nonetheless recovering from the shock and exodus following Sept. 11. Many predicted a doom loop then: Worry of terrorism would trigger residents and firms to depart the town, particularly downtown, creating the sort of void that we see in Midtown at this time.
However then the federal government backed building of latest housing downtown and the conversion of business buildings into flats. As a substitute of spiraling downward, Decrease Manhattan thrived. Comparable measures, with a giant infusion of state and federal cash, may drastically ease the injury from distant work, he mentioned.
“In a best-case situation, we take away 30 or 40 p.c of the workplace inventory in New York Metropolis, flip it into great housing. New York Metropolis has all these nice facilities, it’s an exquisite place the place younger folks wish to stay, no matter the place they work.” He imagined folks telecommuting to jobs in different components of the nation by day, then convening at bars within the Village by night time. “That to me is the imaginative and prescient of New York Metropolis,” he mentioned.
